Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 Associate Professor, Department of Persian Language and Literature, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran
2 Ph.D. in Persian language and literature, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran
Abstract
The theory of "evolution based on natural selection", which was presented by Charles Darwin in the second half of the 19th century, was not only limited to the field of biological knowledge and had a profound impact on the perception of humanities and social sciences scholars of their subjects. Psychology and literary criticism were among the sciences that were influenced by this theory in terms of insight and method and subsequently founded “literary Darwinism”. Literary Darwinism claims that literary behavior is rooted in human-evolved nature. Of course, sometimes the term "evolutionary criticism" has replaced "literary Darwinism" and has been used instead. The current study has tried to present a report on the influence of literature and literary criticism on the theory of evolution and show that evolutionary literary criticism, by identifying the basic and common needs of humans such as sexual attraction, childbearing, social status, while providing a new reading of literary texts based on evolutionary biology and psychology, explores the human characters represented in literature. After introducing this approach to literary texts, one of the contemporary popular novels of Iran (AliJenab Eshgh) written by Rajabali Etimedi has been subjected to evolutionary criticism with a descriptive-analytical method; evolutionary elements such as social status and position, external attractiveness, betrayal and aggression, patriarchy, empathy, and sexual jealousy have been extracted from this book and analyzed. Results revealed that literary criticism can represent the biological content of fictional texts and portray human nature through the analysis of these types of texts.
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